414 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



but finding this did not reach the principal body of subjacent 

 water, he drove an iron bar 4 feet below the bottom of his 

 trench and on withdrawing it the water gushed out. He was 

 thus led to combine the system of cutting drains, aided when 

 necessary by auger holes. His main principles were three : 

 (i) Finding the main spring, or cause of the mischief. (2) Taking 

 the level of that spring and ascertaining its subterranean 

 bearings, for if the drain is cut a yard below the line of the 

 spring the water issuing from it cannot be reached, but on as- 

 certaining the line by levelling the spring can be cut effectu- 

 ally. (3) Using the auger to tap the spring when the drain was 

 not deep enough for the purpose.^ It was owing to the Board 

 of Agriculture at the end of the century that he obtained the 

 vote of ;^i,ooo from Parliament, and a skilful surveyor was 

 appointed to observe his methods and give them to the public, 

 for he was too ignorant himself to give an intelligible account 

 of his system. After the publication of the report his system 

 was followed generally until Smith of Deanston in 1835 gave 

 the method now in use to his country. 



Robert Bakewell, who did more to improve live stock than 

 any other man, was born at Dishley, Leicestershire, in 1725, 

 and succeeding to the management of his father's farm in 1760 

 began to make experiments in breeding.^ He scorned the old 

 idea that the blood must be constantly varied by the mixture 

 of different breeds, and his new system differed from the old in 

 two chief points : (i) small versus large bone, and consequently 

 a greater proportion of flesh and a greater tendency to fatten ; 

 (a) permissible inbreeding versus perpetual crossing with strange 

 breeds. He took immense pains in selecting the best animals 

 to breed from, and had at Dishley a museum of skeletons and 

 pickled specimens for the comparison of one generation with 

 another, and he conducted careful post-mortem examinations 



* Johnstone, Account of ElkingtofC s Draining (1797), pp. 8-9. 

 ' R.A.S.E. Journal (1894), p. 1 1, from which this account of Bakewell 

 is mainly taken. 



